Elite Deviance

Elite Deviance

Edwin Southerland profound the term Elite Deviance and the term has remained in use since the early 20th century. Elite Deviance refers to actions by influential people which may impact negatively on people, but the actions not always illegal. The legality part of those acts makes them earn the ‘deviance’ section of their name. Some instances of elite deviance include a situation when a doctor fails to follow some treatment protocols, and in effect makes the patient spend extra cost of treatment elsewhere. This paper seeks to review the literature on elite deviance and brings a substantive opinion on the same.

The idea of elite deviance also referred to as ‘white-collar crime’ was coined in 1939 when sociologist Southerland was addressing American Sociological Society (Mary, 2012). He argued that the white-collar crimes are the kind of crimes committed by people of prominent status in the society and whose reputations were indisputable. Southerland had a feeling that most large-scale frauds were likely to go unnoticed, or if detected, would go unpunished, making them socially harmful. These kinds of frauds were labeled elite deviance. The conceptualization of elite deviations became a landmark in criminology because there were no instances of whistle-blowing over such issues at the beginning. Only offenders such as buglers, sexual assault offenders, and murders were seen to be the real law-breakers. High capacity offenders like big-scandal government officials would remain free.

As time went, however, there arose literature survey on the true nature of elite deviance. Heitzeg (2015) in one of the research argued that Southerland failed to distinguish between crimes committed by individuals and those committed by state officials in his definition of elite deviance. Other researchers who had a contrary opinion to Southerland’s attempted to point out that Southerland’s version of elite deviance could both aspects of crime, as in occupational crimes committed in the course of one’s occupation, and avocational crime which is not connected to the occupation of someone such as credit card fraud. Strader (2002) labeled the white-collar crime to be a misnomer in the sense that the crimes can be committed among the working class, for instance, the retail crime and tax evasion, as well as the upper class as in the case of antitrust violation. Strader made elite deviance appear as a term that differentiates non-violent crimes committed in the manner of deception from the violent kinds of crimes committed in the full glare of the public. Similarly, Brightman (2009) has proposed that elite deviance is defined as any crime committed non-violently by any person regardless of his or her social status and aims at a financial gain.

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also echoes a similar perspective in their Uniform Crime Report from where they obtain information regarding street crimes in the whole year. Part I of the report is supposed to index serious crimes such as forcible rape and murder, and property crimes such as arson, burglary, and motor vehicle theft. It is interesting to note that none of the crimes reported includes elite deviance. The part II of the FBI report contains less severe crimes which include state offenses such as loitering, vandalism, and runaways, as well as consensual offenses such as vagrancy, prostitution, and drug abuse. It is the part II which at times contain reports on some elite deviance such as forgery, embezzlement, fraud, and counterfeiting. This revelation points to the fact that even law enforcement officers believe that street crimes are more serious than the white-collar crimes regarding their effect on the American society (Rosoff, Pontell, & Tillman, 2010).

Given the obsolete appeal that the reference ‘white collar crime’ brings, most scholars prefer referring to it as “crimes of the powerful” and “elite deviance” (Douglas, 2017).  Most of these scholars mainly use conflict as the theoretical framework for their research. Conflict is a kind of theory that views the society as being in constant state of disputes between the masses and the elites. After Sutherland had coined the term white-collar crime, Wright Mills came up with a close term of ‘power elite’ to describe the scenario whereby there is an unequal balance of power between the leaders in the military and other corporate entities, and the less powerful citizens. The inequality witnessed in these scenarios is not in line with the equality and justice system which forms the basis of the criminal justice system in America. This kind of system tends to make civilians be victims of power manipulation occasioned by the ruling class.

Criminal and deviant behaviors are concepts whose definitions can vary from one society to another depending on the context at that time. Matza and Blomberg (2017) note that “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.” The contentious part of these rules is that illegality of any given crime is determined by a group of elites who form the legislature. These elites can amend rules to suit their interest and in effect go unnoticed after committing grave crimes like large-scale frauds. In the present research, using the theory of elite deviance can help gauge public knowledge on white collar crimes, and the researchers can well go beyond the FBI’s official and come to Sutherland’s original concept. The study on elite deviance helps distinguish between crimes committed by corporations (corporate crimes) and those committed by individuals (individualistic crimes).

Elite deviance can cause harm to the society in three different areas: political, military, and corporate institutions. These harms are in the sense of government control, economic domination, and denial of basic human rights (Mcfarland, 2018). Each of these aspects is discussed herein.

The economic domination constitutes both financial and physical offenses by these elites. Such kind of offenses include situations where corporations defraud the government or evade taxes (DeBacker, Heim, & Tran, 2012). Companies are also culpable of deviance by cheating consumers through price-fixing (setting the price of a good or service, instead of leaving the price to come by default through demand and supply trends), price-gouging (taking advantage of absence of other retailers to hike prices), and falsely advertising and misrepresenting products (Tushnet, 2010). Additionally, competitors can be one of the worst victims of violations on anti-trust laws as well as insider trading (insider trading involves buying and selling of a security by those who have access to nonpublic information). Economic domination can also entail managerial fraud on owners and creditors, self-dealing, and strategic bankruptcy.

Katz (2012) explains that corporate offenses can cause physical harm when unsafe environmental practices like toxic emissions, hazardous waste disposals, and toxic dumping are done beyond the legal limit. Moreover, corporations can cause consumers some harms when they manufacture and distribute unsafe products. Employees are also not left behind in the economic domination by the corporations since they can be fall victim to unsafe working conditions. The unsafe working conditions can result in occupational diseases which are otherwise preventable, accidents, and unfortunate deaths.

In the political aspect, elite dominance can be harmful by way of government control in various areas. State crimes can occur when the legislative, executive and the judicial arm of the government commit offenses domestically. These offenses include corruption, electioneering crimes and usurpation of power, neglect of the rule of law, violating individual civil rights such as illegal surveillance, and infiltration of political parties. Governments can also cause destabilization to foreign nations by creating coups d’état, unlawful warfare, international law violations, threats on nuclear wars, and collaborating with organized criminal groups. The government can also indirectly create public mistrust by the public. The government can fail to punish certain law offenders, and in return, the public may resort to retaliations through cynicism, alienation, and deviance.

Elite deviance can also take the form of human rights denial. Denial of human rights refers to threats to the quality of life and dignity of mankind especially those who are oppressed. Human rights violation will happen when there is an unequal distribution of power which leaves the non-elites at the mercy of profit-seeking elites in the society. Human rights violations can be experienced when there are economic exploitation and human trafficking in the underdeveloped and unstable countries. Unfair labor practices, racial/gender discriminations, sexual harassment in the workplaces, all constitute human right violations which may go unnoticed and unpunished. Totten and Parsons (2012) describe rape, genocide, torture, and ethnic cleansing as the culmination of human rights violations. Luckily, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acts has been accepted in some countries. Nevertheless, there are still reports by the Amnesty International that most people in almost 81 countries still experience torture, other individuals in a further 54 countries face unfair trials, and another 77 countries still don’t allow freedom of expression (Price, Gohdes & Ball, 2016). These point to the continued suppression of human rights which is mainly propagated by the elites.

It is saddening to realize that some human rights abuse legally defined as crimes in some countries cannot be prosecuted because of the status of the culprits. In the United States, for instance, it is not easy to prosecute employers who recruit employees by considering their color, religion, sex, or country of origin. It even gets worse for human rights abuses which have not documented as criminal offenses. Forced labor on inmates, in as much as it is unethical, is authorized in the current amendment to the United States Constitution.

Conclusion

The idea of white-collar crime has existed from the early 20th century, and many scholars have studied it in different contexts. The common stand by all scholars, however, was that the white-collar crime (later referred to as elite deviance) was an unwelcome trend in the society and must be exposed. It is evident that the information availed to people regarding the white-collar crimes has influenced the attitude of these people on the issue of elite deviance. In as much as most scholars appreciated the fact that most white-collar crime offenders were not able to be punished, they realized that the type of crimes committed by these elites was more serious and had more pronounced effects on individuals than the street crimes. It is unfortunate that the main perpetrators of these kinds of crimes are the very people expected to punish the assailants. Nevertheless, it remains to be the role of researchers and scholars to continue the whistleblowing practice until such a time when these elite groups will realize the shameful part of their acts and start behaving most ethically.

References

Brightman, H. J. (2009). Today’s White-Collar Crime: Legal, Investigative, and Theoretical Perspectives. NY: New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

DeBacker, J. M., Heim, B. T., & Tran, A. (2012). Importing Corruption Culture from Overseas: Evidence from Corporate Tax Evasion in the United States (No. w17770). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Douglas M.C., A. (2017). Book Review–Understanding White-Collar Crime: An Opportunity Perspective. Salus Journal, Vol 5, Iss 2, Pp 50-51 (2017), (2), 50.

Heitzeg, N. A. (2015). ‘Whiteness,’ Criminality, and the Double Standards of Deviance/Social Control. Contemporary Justice Review, 18(2), 197-214

Katz, R. S. (2012). Environmental Pollution: Corporate Crime and Cancer Mortality. Contemporary Justice Review, 15(1), 97-125

Mary Jo, D. (2012). Early Women Sociologist and the American Sociological Society: The Patterns of Exclusion and Participation. Revista CS, Vol 0, Iss 10, Pp 313-338 (2012), (10), 313

Matza, D., & Blomberg, T. G. (2017). Becoming deviant. Routledge.

Mcfarland, A. S. (2018). Interest Groups and The Policymaking Process: Sources of Countervailing Power in America.  The Politics of Interests (Pp. 58-79). Routledge.

Price, M., Gohdes, A., & Ball, P. (2016). Technical Memo for Amnesty International Report on Deaths in Detention. Washington, DC: Human Rights Data Analysis Group, 18.

Rosoff, S, Pontell, H., & Tillman, R. (2010). Profit Without Honor: White-Collar Crime and the Looting of America. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall

Strader, K. (2002). Understanding White-Collar Crime. Newark, NJ: LexisNexis.

Totten, S. & Parsons, W.S. (eds). Century of Genocide. Routledge, 2012.

Tushnet, R. (2010). Running the Gamut from A to B: Federal Trademark and False Advertising Law. Retrieved 08/04/2018 from http://works.bepress.com/rebecca_tushnet/9